


Profess(or)

by July_Ophelia



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Fictober, James "Rhodey" Rhodes & Tony Stark at MIT, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Tony Stark Has Issues, ofc is an educated queen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-02
Updated: 2020-10-02
Packaged: 2021-03-08 00:27:09
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,752
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26766520
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/July_Ophelia/pseuds/July_Ophelia
Summary: They met at MIT. Margo Jacobi could go toe to toe with Tony Stark in a battle of wits, and he found that unbelievably hot. They were a perfect team, the dictionary definition of a power couple. Too bad he threw it all away.A chance encounter years down the line, and a chance at redemption. He's not throwing it away this time.
Relationships: Tony Stark & Original Female Character(s), Tony Stark/Original Female Character(s)
Kudos: 12





	Profess(or)

**Author's Note:**

> Hi all, this is based on the fictober prompt #1: "No, come back!". Enjoy!!!

There are very few things Margo Jacobi knows for sure: the sky is blue on days that end in Y, coffee is disgusting bean water, and Tony Stark is oblivious.

He always had been, and it appears that hadn’t changed in the ten years they had been apart. Margo was fourteen, a year younger than Tony, when they met in a physics class at MIT, quickly bonding over their shared young genius status. They started dating two years later, after a routine night of Margo falling asleep at the foot of Tony’s bed on top of her astrology textbook. Rhodey had said if she was going to essentially take up residence at the foot of Tony’s bed they should at least have the gall to make it official, so they did. By the time they graduated two years later, they were in a steady relationship, in love and ready to face the world. With Tony’s double masters degrees in mechanical engineering and business administration, and Margo’s masters in physics, they were an unstoppable power couple. Margo, exhausted from speed running her education and ready to settle into a barely calmer life, denied herself the choice of getting her PhD in favor of becoming Tony’s personal assistant. In hindsight, she was lovesick beyond belief.

\----

A few years passed, and life was just fine until she stopped by Tony’s favorite café on the outskirts of Manhattan to pick up breakfast for his twenty-third birthday. She wasn’t supposed to be in the office until eight, but she got there at seven thirty to enjoy Tony’s surprise birthday breakfast with him before the day could begin. She didn’t find a grumbling and already overwhelmed Tony sitting behind his desk and looking positively annoyed like she usually would find upon her arrival to the office at her normal time. No, she did not: close, but no cigar.

Sure, Tony was behind his desk. But so was the head of PR, Pepper Potts, perched on his lap, hair and suit askew in a telling manner. In an eighth of a second, an eight year commitment was snapped. Margo dropped the bag, scoffed, and walked out of the office building calmly, not waiting or paying any mind to the rustling or calls of her name from Tony’s office. She makes it to her car, and unlocks it, hand on the door and ready to slide into the car and break down, when Tony comes out of the elevator and runs toward her designated parking space. He doesn’t look disheveled, of course Tony would take time to fix his entire appearance before thinking about his long term girlfriend’s reaction to being cheated on. God forbid he ever have one hair out of place in public.

“Margo, please! We can work this out.” Tony suggested, his hand poised on the car door to keep it from opening. 

“‘We’ didn’t cheat on me, Tony.” She scoffed, letting out a choked and wet humorless laugh. “Eight years.”

“Please, Margo.” He begs weakly, seeing her stony expression. 

“No, Tony. Take your hand off my car, my things will be out of the penthouse by six tonight. Don’t try to contact me. I’m blocking your number.”

\----

Ten years had passed and since then, Tony had pursued and broken off his relationship with Pepper Potts and had built Stark Industries into one of the world’s leading tech companies. Margo had used her savings, moved into a nice apartment in Manhattan, gone back to get her doctorate in astrophysics from NYU, and become a professor whose research consisted mostly of thermonuclear astrophysics. 

Which leads to this moment: Tony Stark is coming to campus to give a speech to the science majors and Margo is in her classroom avoiding the theater like the plague. She slips into her office, leaving the door connecting to the classroom open, begrudgingly taking out her StarkPhone, which made her just slightly annoyed whenever she used it. It was the best on the market so she bought it, but she was not happy about it. Sitting down below her favorite thing in her office, a painting by her first TA, she plays music from the phone, the cathartic sounds of All Time Low filling up the silence. The art piece is a poster of Michelle Obama’s quote: “There is no boy who is cute enough or interesting enough to stop you from getting your education.” She sits and stews in her office chair, slowly doing paperwork until the door opens to her half frantic colleague and work friend Janie, who teaches biomedical engineering courses. She rushes into her office.

“Margo, Kurt wants all the science professors at an impromptu lunch with Stark.” She breathes out. “Everyone but you is already there, I don’t care how much paperwork you said you had to do today, Kurt will literally impale you if you’re not at this lunch.”

Margo thinks about it for a moment before deciding she likes her job too much to get fired for not going to a lunch where she may or may not run into her ex boyfriend.

“Fine, let’s go before Kurt decides I’m not worth the trouble.” She throws on a painted on smile and follows behind Janie, regretting not dressing up today. She’s in a normal teaching outfit, a fun short sleeve button up (today’s print is telescopes and stars) and a black form fitting midi skirt with ankle boots. Hardly screams professional and definitely doesn’t scream ‘meeting Tony Stark who also happens to be my ex boyfriend’.

The conference room is just outside of the physics hallway, and the door is already open. The smell of undoubtedly expensive catering wafts out the door along with the noise of excited sciency chatter from the faculty. People are already sitting at tables, eating and conversing, and the minute the two women cross the threshold, Janie abandons Margo for her plate of food and spot by another bio professor who she definitely has a workplace crush on. Before Margo can decide which corner is the best to hide in, she hear’s Kurt, the university president's booming voice, call her over. She whips her head to the right to find him, and her breath catches in her throat at who is standing to his left. 

Tony, predictably, is in a three piece suit, hands in his pockets casually. Margo can tell he recognizes her immediately upon her turning by the way he sets his jaw and locks his knees. She takes a deep breath and makes her way over to the men.

“Margo, such a shame you missed the presentation.” Kurt greets her shortly.

“I’m not pleased I had to miss it either.” Margo answers, equally as shortly, addressing both men. “It’s nice to see you again, Mr. Stark.”

“You’ve met?” Kurt asks.

“We were friends at MIT.” Margo supplies.

“Oh, very cool. I’ll leave you to it, then.” Kurt says, before taking his leave.

“You too,” Tony responds, offering his hand. Margo takes it, giving a curt and firm handshake. “Ms. or Mrs.?”

Oblivious. Only Tony Stark could be in a room of professors and not put two and two together because his mind is off only god knows where.

“Doctor.” Margo responds confidently.

“Oh?” Tony cocks his head. “In what?”

“Astrophysics, but my research focuses on thermonuclear astrophysics.” She explains, arms crossing over her chest. “I went back to school.”

“I gathered that. I didn’t know you wanted to be a professor.” He cocks an eyebrow.

“Always have. Life got in the way.” She quips back, secretly enjoying the way his face falls a little before recovering. 

“Listen, Margo,” Tony sighs. “Can we please talk?”

“I don’t know, Tony. I don’t think it’ll do anything.” Margo shakes her head, turning and starting the walk back to her office.

She makes it all of ten feet before Tony follows.

“No, come back! Five minutes. It’s all I need.” He pushes, laying a hand on her shoulder.

“Fine.” She acquiesces, leading the way out of the conference room and down the physics hallway. 

She takes him back to her classroom and leans on her desk to listen. Below the complicated formulas and confusing notes scattered all over the dry erase boards, Tony keeps it simple.

“I fucked up.” He states simply, taking in the room Margo had made a second home of.

“I know.”

“I-” He stops himself. “My therapist says I have a tendency to push away things because I think they’re too good to be true.”

“You didn’t push Ms. Potts away.” She scowls.

“She wasn’t you.” 

“Tony, what do you want?” Margo asks, exasperatedly flipping pens in the cup on her desk to sit cap up. 

“I miss you, Mo.” He huffs a breathy sigh, eyebrows raising pensively. “Please say you’ll blow this popsicle stand with me and let me take you to dinner.”

“I have to grade papers.” She gets up, walking to the door of her office, chewing on her lip. “But I can multitask if you want to stay.”

Tony’s shoulders deflate from their place around his ears and he follows her into her office, smirking at the art piece above her desk when he reads the quote. Margo is brewing a cup of coffee in the baby blue Keurig on the counter. He recognizes the mug’s print with a quirk of his lip in a tiny smile, it’s pieces of the AGC code from the Apollo 11 mission. 

“Is it still two sugars?” Margo asks, back turned to him.

“Yeah.” He accepts the cup, letting the silence hang and sneaking glances at Margo’s face while she grades, her face looking just the same as it did years ago when she would listen to Tony recount what stupid mistake he made in the lab that day that resulted in four or five figures of damage. Controlled frustration. 

“Can we do a late lunch instead of dinner?” She asks suddenly after writing a sweeping score in red pen on the top left corner of the paper. 

“The sooner we eat the sooner you can get rid of me?” Tony quips.

“I know I have a PhD in it but I feel like at twenty you should know gravity is not nine point two meters per second. You could google that so easily.” She groans. “I should teach more than one hundred level classes more often, I’d be more sane.”

“Late lunch it is.” Tony agrees, standing and offering his hand. “Shall we, Dr. Jacobi?”

“I suppose.”


End file.
